Grown-in defects limiting the bulk lifetime of p-type float-zone silicon wafers

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Abstract
We investigate a recombination active grown-in defect limiting the bulk lifetime (τbulk) of high quality float-zone (FZ) p-type silicon wafers. After annealing the samples at temperatures between 80 °C and 400 °C, τbulk was found to increase from ∼500 μs to ∼1.5 ms. By isochronal annealing the p-type samples between 80 °C and 400 °C for 30 min, the annihilation energy (Eann) of the defect was determined to be 0.3 < Eann < 0.7 eV. When the annihilated samples were phosphorus gettered at 880 °C or subject to 0.2 sun illumination for 24 h, τbulk was found to degrade. However, when the samples were subsequently annealed at temperatures between 250 and 400 °C, the defect could be re-annihilated. The experimental results suggest that the defect limiting the lifetime in the p-type FZ silicon is not related to fast diffusing metallic impurities but rather to a lattice-impurity or an impurity-impurity metastable defect.

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